First, my apologies if any of this has been mentioned elsewhere. I spent about an hour reviewing posts in this forum first, but there's a lot of information and I might have missed some.

Second, I'm enjoying the game very much. Just because I have a long list of problems to report doesn't mean I haven't stayed up for 36 hours straight playing and having fun.

All of these bugs were found in 1.0D1.007 and most were checked and still existed in 1.0D1.008. All are from playing metaverse games - no mods, hacks, or cheat mode. Following this list is a copy and paste of my debug.err file for system info, if that helps any. Most of these problems I suspect are not system dependent.


1. Some keyboard commands can be issued to AI ships. For instance, you can tell AI ships to Guard by selecting them and pressing G. Some ships sit there until woken up by a nearby enemy. Some ships lose a turn or two then continue on. Even worse, you can create a rally point and then tell the AI ship to go to that rally point by selecting the ship, hitting 'T', and setting the destination. If the rally point is not too far away the AI ship will, starting next turn, have 'Autopilot' listed under it's name and proceed to the rally point. You can do this over and over with any enemy ship out in open space. Obviously, a big issue. You can also tell enemy ships to Sentry with the S key and to disband the fleet (if the fleet is sharing a tile with some other object, like a ship that is not in that fleet). These last two, though, are not as disruptive as repeatedly sending AI ships chasing after a rally point.


2. Rally points are not selectable (by left clicking on them in the main window) when they share a tile with a single ship or starbase. If they share the tile with multiple objects then you get the list of icons in the context window and can click on the rally point to select it. However, if the rally point is under an enemy starbase, you cannot select it to delete or edit it. The manual mentions a rally point window accessed with the 'X' key and square brackets for selecting next and previous rally points, but these keys don't seem to actually do anything. A small window that lists all of the rally points and allows you to rename, change the type, and delete them would be nice.


3. Using the 'D' key to get details on a planet produces odd results in some situations. There are two different cases.

First, start the game up fresh (not just loading a game or starting a new game, but exit all the way out to Windows then come back). Select any planet. Press 'D'. The planet detail screen appears. Click done. The main window, context window, and minimap are now solid black. Use a function key to get the screen to refresh. This can be repeated indefinitely until a colonized planet's details are viewed by first going to the planet's colony management (main) screen and then clicking on the Details button. After that, using the 'D' key from the main game window no longer produces a black screen.

However, the second issue comes into play now. Double click a colonized planet or select it and view it. From the Colony Management screen, click on Details. Once you have done this, even if you reload or start a new game, you will not run into the black screen problem above. You do get something else odd though. Back in the main game window, select an uncolonized planet. Press 'D' to view the details (note that double clicking on an uncolonized planet does nothing). The keyboard shortcut takes you to the details screen of the last colonized planet you viewed, but with the 4 buttons (delete, make home, rename...) greyed out. The keyboard shortcut should probably just do nothing when an uncolonized planet is selected.


4. The smaller windows, such as the ship detail ('D') and the rally point screen ('T') open an instance for every time the corresponding key is pressed. Example: select a ship, press 'D' five times, and you get 5 copies of the window. It would be more intuitive for these windows to toggle on key presses, like the main F1 through F8 windows do. Press 'D' to view the ship's details and the press 'D' again to close the window.


5. The notification icons that appear on the right side of the screen do not always drop all the way down and stack up neatly. Sometimes they get hung part way down. Sometimes multiple notifications all pile up behind each other.


6. Fog sometimes creeps back in, as if the correct sensor data has been forgotten. Clicking on a the ship or station in that area forces the fog to redraw correctly.


7. There is a naming issue in the ship design process that causes a crash to desktop. Make a User ship design. Obsolete it. Make a new design with the same name. After clicking on Ok, the game crashes. Personally, I'd rather design everything from scratch, based on my current needs and tech, than to have to sift through all the Core and old User defined designs. It's too messy, even without absentmindedly using a name I'd obsoleted before and crashing.


8. The minimap does not update immediately for some events. For instance, new autopilot lines do not show up until you select another ship, end the turn, or move/zoom the minimap a bit to force a redraw. When I tell a ship to go somewhere farther away than it can get to in one turn, the autopilot line should show up as soon as it's used its movement points. Another similar cases is with the influence colors on larger maps. Zoom in a bit and the colors don't always get filled in completely. Again, clicking the middle mouse button on the minimap to slide it around a little or rotate it a bit forces a refresh.


9. Sometimes after a load some of my ships will have new, random seeming autopilot destinations. I was not able to reproduce this one reliably.


10. Sliders on the scroll bars, like when setting tax rate and spending policies, do not behave well at all. In particular, they often get stuck at the ends and you have to click on them again to get them moving once more.


11. In the ship design window, deleting or obsoleting a ship is followed by a refresh and display of All ships, but if you were on the User or Core tab then that tab is still highlighted. For example: make a user design, go the User tab, delete or obsolete the design. The window will refresh and display all available designs but the User tab will still be highlighted up top.


12. Using the governor to switch ships from one rally point destination to another wastes any remaining movement points those ships have for the current round. To see this, create two rally points far enough away for the distance to be greater than one turn's worth of travel. Send a ship towards the first rally point. End the turn, so that the ship has full movement points again but is in Autopilot mode and not yet moving. Go to the governor and reassign it to the second rally point. End the turn. The autopilot line to the original rally point disappears but a new one is not drawn and the ship does not move. When I first ran into this I thought the new destination had simply not taken effect, just that the old one had been cancelled. Wait though, and End the turn again. The ship begins, finally, to move towards the new rally point. If this sounds confusing, compare it to manually selecting a ship and giving it a new destination - if it has movement points left it begins traveling immediately.


13. On the trade screen (when negotiating with the leader of another race) I get highlight artifact on all the the options along the sides. When you hover over an item, like a technology name, the item is highlighted by a thin green box. If I move my mouse up the entire list, several of the items remain highlighted. It's a minor cosmetic issue, but it does look shabby.

14. Using the 'T' key when a planet is selected crashes the game.



Here is my debug.err file from this last case - for the record I started up fresh from a reboot, began a new game, and the first thing I did was select a planet and press 'T' to produce the crash. I doubt the log helps much with that though - I'm including it because it lists my system specs, just in case they are relevant for any of the above problems.


Thanks,
Liosliath




< debug.err >


Debug Message: Version v1.0D-1 Digital: Bonus Pack last updated on: Fri Feb 24 12:35:33 2006
Debug Message: Could not find a TGN Serial No.
Debug Message: *********DXDiag info follows.*********
System Info
Time: 2/26/2006, 19:16:17
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Machine Name: BLF-NEW
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Languages: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gateway
System Model: E-4100
BIOS: BIOS Date: 08/01/03 14:34:42 Ver: 08.00.09
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz (2 CPUs)
Physical Memory: 1022MB RAM
Page File: 218MB used, 2245MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINNT


Display Info
Display device 1:
Device Name: \\.\DISPLAY1
Card Name: RADEON 9800 SERIES
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip Type: RADEON 9800 PRO AGP (0x4E48)
DAC Type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Key Device: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E48&SUBSYS_2066107B&REV_00
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Display Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (75Hz)
Monitor Name: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6583
Driver Date: 10/28/2005 21:12:48
DirectX Acceleration Enabled: Yes



Sound info
Sound device 1:
Description: SB Audigy 2 Audio [A400]
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_1102&DEV_0004&SUBSYS_10061102&REV_04
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Driver Name: ctaud2k.sys
Provider: Creative
Driver Version: 5.12.0001.0444
Driver Date: 10/18/2004 15:21:24
Type: WDM
Other Drivers:
Acceleration Level: 3
Cap Flags: 0
Min/Max Sample Rate: 0, 0

Sound device 1:
Description: Modem #1 Line Playback (emulated)
Default Sound Playback: No
Default Voice Playback: No
Hardware ID:
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 81
Driver Name:
Provider:
Driver Version:
Driver Date:
Type: Emulated
Other Drivers:
Acceleration Level: 3
Cap Flags: 0
Min/Max Sample Rate: 0, 0



Debug Message: *********END dxdiag info.*********
Debug Message: Entering WinMain
Debug Message: ******* Starting Game Shell *******
Debug Message: Going Fullscreen
Debug Message: Preparing to change display settings.
Debug Message: Using multilsample setting: D3DMULTISAMPLE_4_SAMPLES
Debug Message: Game Resolution: 1024 x 768
Debug Message: Running fullscreen.
Debug Message: HAL (hw vp): RADEON 9800 SERIES
Debug Message: D3DPRESENT_INTERVAL_DEFAULT
Debug Message: Refresh rate: 75
Debug Message: Bit Depth: 32 bit.
Debug Message: *********Checking D3DDevice Caps***********************
Debug Message: A full-color cursor is supported in hardware at high resolution modes.
Debug Message: RGB in format 6:6:6, Masks reported as ff0000:ff00:ff
Debug Message: Now Fullscreen
Debug Message: Shell initialization complete
Debug Message: ***** Initializing Game *****
Debug Message: Timer Frequency is 0 8eb449a0
Debug Message: Initializing sound card.
Debug Message: initailizing bink
Debug Message: Create setup screens.
Debug Message: Clear galaxy settings.
Debug Message: Clear influence.
Debug Message: Clear up laws.
Debug Message: Clear first time events.
Debug Message: Clear wonders and trade goods.
Debug Message: Clear sector mapper.
Debug Message: Set mouse.
Debug Message: Set update timer.
Debug Message: Clear data definitions.
Debug Message: No files found matching mask C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Games\GalCiv2\*.StarSystems
*DEBUG ERROR: ***Unable to find required tech ImpossibleTech for PirateShip. ***
*DEBUG ERROR: ***Unable to find required tech ImpossibleTech for Starbase. ***
Debug Message: Reading Star Names
Debug Message: Reading Star Names... Done
Debug Message: Clear data definitions.
*DEBUG ERROR: ***Unable to find required tech ImpossibleTech for PirateShip. ***
*DEBUG ERROR: ***Unable to find required tech ImpossibleTech for Starbase. ***
Debug Message: MetaverseWnd: Cannot find OBJID Metaverse_Character_Race_Title
Debug Message: MetaverseWnd: Cannot find OBJID Metaverse_Character_Name_Value
Debug Message: MetaverseWnd: Cannot find OBJID Metaverse_Character_Race_Value
Debug Message: CustomRaceWnd: Cannot find OBJID CustomRace_Description_Text
Debug Message: CustomRaceWnd: Cannot find OBJID CustomRace_Tab_Homeworld
Debug Message: Creating Galaxy
Debug Message: Set galaxy size.
Debug Message: Killing threads.
Debug Message: Kiling civs.
Debug Message: Killing ships.
Debug Message: Killing rallypoints.
Debug Message: Killing misc objects.
Debug Message: Killing stars.
Debug Message: Killing anomalies.
Debug Message: Killing space resources.
Debug Message: Killing colonies and planets.
Debug Message: killing scenario.
Debug Message: Clear galaxy settings.
Debug Message: Clear influence.
Debug Message: Clear up laws.
Debug Message: Clear first time events.
Debug Message: Clear wonders and trade goods.
Debug Message: Clear sector mapper.
Debug Message: Creating Random Map
Debug Message: Creating Random Map... Stars
Debug Message: Number of Unplaced Stars: 0.
Debug Message: Creating Random Map... Planets
Debug Message: Creating Random Map... Anomalies
Debug Message: Num Anomalies: 7
Debug Message: Creating Random Map... Resources
Debug Message: Creating Random Map... Done
Debug Message: Creating Civs
Debug Message: Terran Alliance: Intellence -> 20
Debug Message: Ran out of available planets.
Debug Message: Creating Civs... Done
Debug Message: Updating ZOC.
Debug Message: Updating ZOC.
Debug Message: Galaxy Create... Done
Debug Message: UIBeginGame called with g_ulLocalPlayerID = 10
Debug Message: setting size 16 x 0
Debug Message: setting size 16 x 0
Debug Message: setting size 16 x 0